Monday, February 2, 2009
BOLLYWOOD, OSCARS & SLUMDOG !!
Hello friends !!
This is my first blog & I would like to blog on a subject very close to my heart: Bollywood & also on the recent success of 'Slumdog Millionaire' & 'The White Tiger'.
I'm an ardent fan of movies, be it bollywood, hollywood or Korean for that matter. After viewing hundreds of movies of all genres & places, I can broadly hypothesise that if hollywood is known for its technically precise & thought-provoking conceptually brilliant movies, bollywood should be given credit for producing more than 500 films a year with most of them featuring songs & revolving around the diverse culture of India. As far as korean movies are concerned, they are too slow, but brilliant on the emotional front.
Being an afficionado of Bollywood, it really hurts to swallow the bitter pill that only 3 movies from India in the last 60 years have made it to Best foreign film category in Academy awards, popularly known as Oscars. These are Mother India(1957), Salaam Bombay(1988) & Lagaan(2001). Before the nomination of 'Slumdog Milionaire' for oscars & Man's booker prize 2008 being awarded to Aravind Adiga for 'The White Tiger' I never used to doubt the impartiality of Oscars & Bookers. But the recent successes of these 'hogwash potboilers' have forced me to think that way.
It's no coincidence that the only movies from India that have received critical acclaim from West revolve around poverty or depict India as a third world nation still sunk deep in the swarms of poverty. It seems that Danny Boyle & Aravind Adiga have found the new mantra for success: Present the filth, poverty & corruption of India to the west in an exaggerated way to the point of utter disgust in the name of so called REALITY & the West is ready to honour with bookers & golden globes. It's a win-win situation. The west is getting entertained seeing our squalor-filled country & the media (& most of us Indians) are going ga-ga over India's achievement.
I can't agree more with Amitabh Bachhan on what he said about the Oscars recently that Oscars are not the ultimate recognition for a film & Bollywood is far more creative than the West. He was spot on on his judgement for 'slumdog' as well which the media overhyped to give a negative image of Big B.
So, it's not that I'm craving for Oscars but it hurts to see such ridiculous films getting recognition while great movies like Rang De Basanti & Taare Zameen Par being kicked out of the Oscar race. India has produced far better mainstream movies than slumdog.. Had it been an Indian entry, nobody would have given it the hoopla it's receiving now & it would have been thrashed.
Slumdog, seems to me, is a caricature of India. It is made only to mock India & for voyeuristic pleasures of the West. Same goes for The White Tiger, it's even more disgusting & stinking. Salaam Bombay & City of Joy also depicted slums of Mumbai & Kolkata respectively but there was sincerity & honesty in their effort. But slumdog & white tiger seem to keep reality at stake just to please the first world.
It's high time we should have a reality check instead of gloating on the success of slumdog which ridicules & caricatures our nation.
Signing Off,
Anurag Gupta
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true to every bit.. a thing which i dont understand is why are all indians so psyched about the Oscars? Whats the rush?? This was an award designed by the English for the English.. so why should we ever expect a bollywood flick to b nominated?? We dont award "satyajit Ray" awards to foreigners, why should we expect their awards??
ReplyDeleteTo Guru
ReplyDeleteI do agree that Oscars are meant 4 hollywood..so I've clearly mentioned "Foreign Film Category".M nt talking about other categories at all.
this is a true representation of the youthful mind of indians like us who believe in the real india seen by our eyes and not the one depicted by outsiders... thanks anurag, for raising ur voice in this regard.
ReplyDeletesell india's poverty n b rich..i found dat d mantra behind slumdog..neithr d makers nor d lead actors are indian den y we indians are flauntin??..
ReplyDeleteseriously very well written..u hav projected ur point of view quite aptly..
buddy..everyone has freedom of speech n freedom of xpressing their thoughts...if they r xpressing it in their own way..who we r to challenge or to blame them....if we dont like...stay away...if the muvie or the subject is a hit..that means majority likes it..... But a well written blog... vichar karne yogya hai......
ReplyDeletewow.. couldn't agree with you more :)
ReplyDeletei wud say sell watever u can right now n make profit; their way of seeing us doesnt change our way of living! We shud never care abt der approval of us bein prosperous or poor~~
ReplyDeleteA good job done... My views on the same are on my blog... I would be keeping a keen eye on ur blog from now on....
ReplyDeletedude nice topic to start with but u need to give credit to slumdog for der presentation and production value...if it wud ve been directed by any bollywood director it cud ve been more dramatic...anyway they made aggggggggggud effort to depict da reality
ReplyDelete@vishal
ReplyDeleteI do agree dat some ppl liked the movie & some didn't. It's a personal judgement but tell me one thing very honestly- Did this movie deserve 8 oscars?? The kind of hype the team is gettin (Freida Pinto being touted as sexiest woman & Dev Patel getting undue attention when v all know dat both had miniscule roles) is just uncalled for. The children wer the soul of the film & their acting deserves praise. Resul Pookutty himself said dat "slumdog" wasn't his best sound work. Also, A.R Rahman who has given masterpieces to us (Roja, Bombay, Lagaan, RDB, Saathiya etc) would agree dat slumdog's music was just mediocre. I know the debate has no end but I can't join the bandwagon & hail a mediocre film like "slumdog" just coz it has won so many oscars. I've written wat I honestly felt bt respect othr ppl's judgmnt as well.
hey it was indeed a good viewpoint but i wud like to place another one as well.There is no denying the fact that whatever slumdog or white tiger depict has its roots somewhere in our country. Had it not been for the poverty n corruption , we wud have been a developed nation by now (the yardstick being a proper living standard n not the GDP statistics ). If we observe closely we will come to know that sumerians were under developed when we were developing n it has been more than 60 years n see we r still developing n dey have developed. So what i wanna say is that we need to ponder over these issues n come up wid a concrete plan to combat poverty n corruption.And if in that process movies like slumdog can work as eyeopener for our nation, be it so.
ReplyDeletehey it was a really good point u brought into lite n m glad 2 c tht still our generation thnks 'bout India...younger generation is definitely very concerned n aware!!!
ReplyDeletewell written...
Thnx Upasana !!
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